A Mother’s Day Special – A Mom Biz Retreat

As moms and entrepreneurs, we run across all types of products and services that may help us with our business and personal life.  We also run across many events and conferences that may be worth attending that could help us take our business to the next level or connect with just the right person to work with on a specific goal.  I ran across an event that I think all mom entrepreneurs should consider, plus wine, chocolate and pampering are all a part of it (and as moms we always need more of that).

It’s called the Mom Biz Retreat.  So you might ask, what is the Mother’s Day Special?  The facilitators of this event are offering $75 off for Freelancemom.com friends.

What is this Mom Biz Retreat all about?

The Mom Biz Retreat is one part business boot camp and one part weekend getaway for mom-entrepreneurs. With the skills, teaching and empowering tools of entrepreneurial experts Lara Galloway and Shelagh Cummins, you’ll roll up your sleeves and learn how to:

• write/update a business plan
• create an effective marketing strategy
• develop a time map to put work in its place and enjoy your family more
• craft the perfect elevator pitch
• determine the best product funnel for your business
• figure out how to make more money with what you’re already doing
• build the foundations of your business in a group of supportive, amazing women
• Join the MomBizRetreat family – and receive ongoing support from all alumni

If you are on the fence or need more information, Shelagh Cummins and Lara Galloway are always happy to answer any questions you have about the specifics of the retreat and how this retreat can help your specific business and life goals. 

How do I find out more and sign up?

Click here – To learn more about the Mom Biz Retreat

Use promo code Denver75 when you register to make sure you get the discount.

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Some conscientious users attempt to make their #followfriday tweets more useful by explaining why you might follow a certain user — what is follow worthy about them?  I like these kinds of tweets actually and do look for new people to follow on Fridays.  Especially from sources whom I admire.

Last Friday @chrisbrogan suggested a new #followfriday tradition – where we blog our #ff recommendations and have a single tweet linking to our blog post.  I think the idea has merit.  I love the concept of #ff, genuinely enjoy sharing resources and letting people know that I think highly of them.  At the same time, each week I’m more and more hesitant to spam the twittersphere with yet another #ff.  Plus – I’m not limited in the amount of characters I can use to extol the virtues of my twitter friends!

So in the spirit of generosity I offer you these awesome folks to follow on Twitter.

@openskye – Kevin is new to Twitter, but old hat to marketing wit and insight.  His web design firm has handled branding and design for some pretty large companies.  Follow him for engaging conversations on corporate branding and marketing strategies.

@onemomsworld – I like Jen.  She’s a work at home Mom who is both successful and affable.  She’s the type of person that you know would make a good friend.  If you’re a WAHM – check out her blog too for a fun look into another Mom’s busy world.

@jillwhalen – I RT and FF Jill often.  She’s been a mentor to me on my SEO journey.  One of the few elite SEO’s that I have found to be approachable and willing to help new SEO’s so I’m always looking for a reason to pay it forward back to her.  But friendliness aside — Jill is also a thinker and tester in the field of SEO so what she says is valuable.

@gretchenrubin – I’m reading her book, “The Happiness Project” and its right in alignment with other studies I’m immersed in such as Quantum Physics, Feng Shui, Deepak Chopra & Tony Robbins.  Her memoir is engaging, inspiring and human… and she actively blogs and twitters which brings the relationship of reader & author to life in a uniquely 2010 way.

@smashingmag – A must follow for web designers.  Many smart and inspiring tweets throughout the week to keep you on top of your game.

That’s all for the week!  What do you think?  Who are your follow friday recommendations?  Let me know in the comments!

To truly be successful in business – our entire mindset – the way we interact and react with the world needs to change. Dramatically. The Secret is all about the Law of Attraction.

We all have ability to shape our lives. We have the ability to attract everything that we desire into our lives. Unfortunately – we equally can attract negative circumstances. The Secret guides us in understanding this universal law of attraction. Understanding is the key to implementation. If you’re ready to change your life — read on…

We all have the ability to transform our weaknesses into strengths. We’re all fully capable of having prosperity, health, and happiness in our lives. Watching and reading The Secret is one of the best pieces of advice I can give to women who truly want to change their lives.

You can watch the first 20 minutes of The Secret for free right here:

Here is an introduction to the concepts in The Secret by Bob Proctor.

Here are 2 free ebooks that Rhonda Byrne offers on the official Secret website:

The Master Key System – By Charles F Hannel

The Science of Getting Rich – By Wallace D Wattles

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization – the gist of it

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Keywords are the backbone of SEO but should be used with care and always with the website visitor’s experience in mind.  The main purpose of the [slider title="keyword research"]New to keyword research?  Try Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or WebCEO.[/slider] is to determine what people actually type into the search engines and attempt to organically introduce the keyword phrases into your website content to complement these results.

In general, you just want to focus on a few keyword phrases per page – where they make sense in your content.  Don’t be overwhelmed by the list – but just keep it on hand to refer to when you are entering a new product, writing an article, submitting your website to a directory or any other number of content and link building activities you’ll engage in over time.

INTEGRATE KEYWORDS INTO EXISITING CONTENT
Title tags, Description tags, Alt tags on images and actual on page content.
Using the keyword research, you will want to review each page individually and incorporate keyword phrases where it makes sense.
Most importantly, make certain that title and description tags on each page are unique.  You do not want to duplicate this content on each page.

While crafting the title and description tags, keep in mind that often these are what show up in search engine results.  So consider how you can strategically utilize keywords while at the same time entice the click through from the person searching.
Here is an example of how you might optimize your Earring Page:

OTHER SEO SUGGESTIONS

Add a sitemap
Add a sitemap to the website and keep it updated so that as you add or remove products – Google and the other search engines will find them.
As a general rule you want to be sure that every page is within a couple of clicks from the homepage.  A sitemap can make that possible for important product pages that are buried deeper in the site.

Build your links
Search, scour and devour your niche!  Look for directories to submit your website to.  NOTE: Remember to use some keyword phrases in your links when you can.  For example a directory link could read like this: Gemstone Designs Handcrafted Jewelry
Try searching Google for things like ‘add craft link’ or ‘jewelry directory’ etcetera.
Never stop creating links to your website – it will be the deciding factor in how well your website ranks.
Write articles and submit them to article directories – make sure you link to your website at the bottom in an ‘author bio’.
Sign up for accounts with social networking websites like some of the following:

• Flickr
•  Squidoo
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Epinions
• Del.icio.us
• Tribe.net

Blog
One of the exciting things about your niche is that there is tremendous ‘social networking’ potential.  Other artisans may not be your most likely customers, but they may very well link to your website.
Get involved with them by starting a blog where you chat about anything relating to your art.  Show photos of your latest designs, link to other blogs and artists and rave about their work.
Provide some ‘how to’s’ for beginners and poise yourself as in industry expert.

Join Forums
Do a search for forums with other crafters, or anything that you are interested in.  Engage in conversations with people and utilize your profile ‘signature’ as a means to promote and link to your website.

Add your site to local listings:
Search on directories for your area’s local businesses and also consider submitting to:

• Yahoo Local
• Google Local
• Live Local
• Yelp

This should get you started :-)  Good luck! 

As a small business owner it’s so easy to get caught up in the mentality that you have to wear every hat in your business in order to save money. In the beginning, that may be so. But as you begin to grow you’ll find that you end up making less money by trying to do it all on your own.

If you find that you have clients or customers that aren’t being attended to by the end of the day (and we’re talking real world 9-5 time here freelancers. Staying up to midnight at the cost of quality time with your family can’t possibly be the vision you set for your life when you decided to work for yourself!) If you do find that you end up leaving many things undone by the end of the day and don’t look forward to the morning… guess what? It’s time to hire help!

Consider [slider title="getting yourself a virtual assistant"]If you’re interested in finding a VA, I’m happy to give you some references personally. Or consider posting over on the FreelanceMom Forums. Another fantastic option is to post projects on elance. Elance is a place where business owners post projects and freelance professionals bid on the work. I’ve used elance from both ends – buyer and provider, and haven’t found a service that I like more than what they provide there. By the way, the freelancers who will bid on your work have portfolios for you to view as well as feedback from previous projects they have done. And it’s free for you to use – the freelancers pay a subscription to bid there, but buyers do not.[/slider] to begin with. What do you do on a daily basis that doesn’t require your most valuable skills and that someone else can handle for you? I’ll give you some examples that might really get you excited to take this step!

1. Imagine if you had a trustworthy personal assistant that you could direct your email to. We are all guilty of spending way too much time sorting through email. And you and I both know how many diversions await us in the midst of all the spam!

Instead, you either set up your email via the web, or have your assistant install Eudora on their computer to only handle your email. They go through your email as it comes in a few times a day and they forward to you what requires your attention.

During the first few weeks of this you’ll find that a lot of what comes in is really not something that necessarily requires your attention. So you email your assistant back with a ‘template’ reply. She sets up a template in Eudora that she can use to reply to any future request like this in the future.

The template alone saves you time. Even if you don’t hire an assistant – consider automating some of your replies in this way yourself. It’s so much easier than continually typing in the same answer all the time.

Having someone else go through your spam is going to be liberating. Set yourself up an email account that you won’t advertise on the web, so all the spam bots won’t easily find it. The mail that comes into this account from your assistant and from colleages and customers/clients that you give it out to will all be relevant emails that you must address.

How much would a service like this be worth to you? If you’re capable of making $50-$100 an hour in your business – then wouldn’t it be well worth it to pay a VA $10-$25 to handle your spam? If an hourly rate makes you uncomfortable talk with your assistant about a retainer. Lay out the services that you require and the amount you can comfortably afford and work with them to come up with a fair agreement. Make sure all expectations are clear and make sure they are following through on their end. Eventually you’ll find the exact right fit for you and having a VA will inspire you to take your business to much hire levels than you thought you’d ever have time for!

2. Does your business require a large amount of customer support? Especially if you are selling ebooks or any technical service like a sitebuilder to your customers then I bet you have had those phone calls with a single customer for a half hour. How much money did you lose? In the end what is that customer paying you? $25/month for your service? The support was necessary – but in the end the sale is a wash.

Imagine not taking those calls? A VA can handle your support for you. And skilled VA’s can help you to set up your business in such a way that you can eliminate much of the phone time necessary to handle customer support.

As your assistant becomes familiar with your business they can begin taking customer questions and compling them into an FAQ. On your support page it will be the first thing you offer to a customer. If they can do a quick search on their question and get a clear answer most of them would rather do that then pick up the telephone. In addition to the FAQ, you can set up a help desk system and a live chat. There are many open source solutions for this that are free – and other great solutions that don’t cost much money at all to get up and running. Now those cumbersome phone calls can be handled by a VA through the help desk efficiently with template replies set up to the majority of questions that would come through. A support request that used to take 30 minutes can suddenly take less than 5.

And remember – a VA doesn’t bill you like a secretary in a brick and mortar business would. They bill you for the time that they work. Not for the time they sit at their desk. The exception to this is Live Chat. You’ll want them to have the chat open but most of the time noboby will be requesting a chat. So this is a fuzzy area. The solution is to offer them a flat rate to handle the chat each week – together you’ll find a fair rate based on the amount of traffic your website gets.

3. Bookkeeping. VA’s often have a great deal of experience with it. You can get a Quick Books online account that they can use so that you can both access the data – or if you require a shopping cart then go with 1shoppingcart.com and a desktop version of Quickbooks that you can download your data into. No idea why you can’t do that with QuickBooks online — maybe it’s changed, but o my knowledge you can’t. If you want to use QuickBooks on your desktop – set up an account with GotoMyPC.com and give your VA access. At times you agree to they can access the computer and enter all the recipts, refunds, invoices etc. A huge time saver for you… you now have all that free time to dream up new products, make proposals, attend speaking engagements or any number of bigger picture items for your business.

You’ll be amazed at what can be taken off your plate. You can focus your energy on your mission statement again and take your business to higher, more efficient levels… and still have a personal life! This is called working smarter, not harder. Let me know how it goes!

The fellows famous from their StomperNet -Going Natural SEO videos. Have come out with an excellent sitebuilder product called
BlinkWeb.

The software lets you build an internet marketing letter type website. I just took a quick look at it after the launch today and there is also blogging and regular website page functionalities as well. You can put up a site for free – but it would need to be a subdomain of blinkweb.com. They give you an option to have your own domain name with it but will charge you hosting fees.

They are offering it free to the first 1000 members so hurry because these guys have a huge list. If you aren’t on that list, btw – get yourself on it because these guys are great and you’ll want to be sure you have their latest insights in your internet marketing arsenal.

Best,

See you there!

What I’d like to focus on in this tip is ways beyond advertising that you can promote your website or business opportunity.

Many of you are using the same website as the rest of the members of your team. I think it’s well worth considering building your own website. I also have written about this in the past so won’t repeat myself here.

You are told to participate in forums and have the bizop in your signature… also to place ads. Here are some thoughts I have on that.

Article distribution is a super way to increase traffic to your site. I have a list you can use to get started submitting your articles – but it hasn’t been updated in awhile. Sorry about that…

Here’s a hint with article distribution… Take an article that you have written and rewrite parts of it a few times. You will essentially have three or four versions of the same article. Change your bio in each as well using different keyword terms in your link to your website.

This will help your article to rank better in the search engines. If you want more information about that check out this free report from Jason Potash.

I think the most important thing is networking. Start a new folder in your browser favorites for blogs. Research blogs where your target market likely hangs out. Make comments on the blog. There is always a place to leave your website address there.

Just make sure your comments are meaningful or they won’t be posted by the blogger – and also because you simply won’t peak the interest of blog readers to come check out your site.

Here’s another thought… start a blog of your own! You can do it easily and free using either wordpress.com or blogger.com.

If you have a blog be sure to come over to our brand new FreelanceMom Blog Network and join in the fun :-) It’s just a baby project so get in on it in the begining and help me out!

5 Minutes for Mom just announced a fun contest where you can win one of these gadgets. It’s a neat way to get emails and digital pics to someone you know who is SO untech savvy they don’t even have internet access. Hard to imagine… but we all know someone!

Go ahead and sign up — nothing to lose :)

February, 2007 – It was just over 10 years ago, in September of 1996, that authors Ellen Parlapiano and Patricia Cobe released their first Mompreneurs® book—catapulting work-at-home mothers into the spotlight, and coining and trademarking the catchy word “mompreneurs” to describe entrepreneurial moms. As work-at-home moms themselves (both were home-based writers/consultants raising young children), Parlapiano and Cobe decided to pen the book when they couldn’t find anything on the market addressing the special needs of mothers running businesses from home. “Wherever we went—whether to the playground or the supermarket—other moms would ask how we did it,” says Parlapiano. “So we decided to write our own how-to book about starting and running a business from a mother’s perspective.”

That first book, Mompreneurs®: A Mother’s Practical, Step-by-Step Guide to Work-at-Home Success (Perigee, 1996), caught the attention of the media, landing the authors on Oprah, Good Morning America and several other national shows. It also led to follow-up books and a five-year stint as featured Mompreneurs® experts on iVillage.com, where the authors dispensed home business advice.

Today, Cobe and Parlapiano offer support and advice at their own website, MompreneursOnline.com (www.mompreneursonline.com), which features message boards, articles, and a unique Mompreneurs® Marketplace showcasing mom-owned businesses. They are recognized by the media as the go-to experts when the topic is work-from-home moms. Last month, Parlapiano offered tips on The CBS Early Show’s three-part series about women entrepreneurs, which also highlighted two MompreneursOnline community members, Ester LaPollo of MamaAfrika (www.mamaafrika.com) and Kathie Papera of Lilypad Baby (www.lilypadbaby.com).

Mompreneur® Trends 2007

With their fingers on the pulse of the mompreneur® movement, the authors have noticed many exciting trends that will make it easier for today’s mothers to launch their own enterprises:

●Technology makes working from home easier than ever! “The Web provides a gateway to careers that were practically unheard of when we wrote our first book,” says Cobe, citing examples like e-tailing, personal coaching, online tutoring and virtual assistants (who provide office support services via the Web). Even lawyers, bankers, nurses, teachers and other professionals—who would have been hard-pressed to find work-at-home jobs in their specialties 10 years ago—are carving out all kinds of interesting career niches, without having to switch professions. Attorneys are running advocacy websites for special-ed students, travel specialists launch online agencies, former Spanish teachers help preschoolers become bilingual, and public policy experts run thriving consulting businesses. With high-tech tools like blogs and podcasts, mompreneurs are able to reach a wider audience without leaving the comfort of their homes.

●Mothers of invention are creating new niches. Today’s creative moms are inventing gadgets and safety products that solve problems they’ve discovered in their own family lives. For example, after running out of space to display her children’s artwork, Suzy Fanning, of Plymouth, Michigan, created MacKenzie Kids Art Files (www.mackenziekids.net), a smart storage and display system. The designer of the Stowers Swaddler swaddling blanket (www.stowersswaddler.com), was inspired by her own experience as a mom and a labor-delivery nurse to create a swaddling blanket with a pocket and Velcro closures. The Web makes it easy for enterprising moms to research patents, trademarks and other legalities with the click of a mouse.

●Moms want to make a difference. “We are seeing a big increase in cause-related companies—businesses with a social conscience,” says Parlapiano. For example, Mama Afrika (www.mamaafrika.com) is an online business that benefits African women and children. It was founded by Ester LaPollo, a Lompac, California mom who sells African crafts and specialties on her site, and donates a portion of her proceeds back to the African countries.

●Funding is easier to find. Though mompreneurs® still tend to rely on savings accounts and credit cards for start-up expenses, grants and low-interest loans are more accessible, if you know where to look. Great resources include: Count Me In (www.count-me-in.org) and Accion USA (www.accionusa.com). Also check local small business development centers and women’s networking groups to see if they can recommend potential lenders. The Make Mine a $Million Business® contest, sponsored by Count-Me-In and American Express Open helps moms grow their businesses through monetary support, mentoring, marketing and technology tools. (Enter at www.makemineamillion.org). One of the 2006 winners was Renee Wood, founder of The Comfort Company (www.thecomfortcompany.net), an online retailer of condolence gifts, and a charter member of MompreneursOnline.com. “It was so gratifying to watch Renee get the opportunity to take her business to that million dollar level,” says Cobe, who was in the audience cheering when Renee won.

●Work-from-home moms are now getting the respect they deserve! With about half a million moms running their own businesses, entrepreneurial mothers are finally being taken seriously by the “traditional” work world. Corporations often hire work-from-home moms as consultants, and mompreneurs® find they no longer have to keep motherhood a secret. Moms are on a mission to attain more family flexibility and have proven that they can successfully run a business and family under the same roof. They are confident and capable. “It’s not about opting out, it’s about creating new options,” says Parlapiano.

Related Links

Mompreneursonline
www.mompreneursonline.com

Contact Information
Ellen Parlapiano
Founder of Mompreneurs
Mompreneurs Online
914-472-7322
mail@mompreneursonline.com